Migrant survivor says Mediterranean shipwreck was 'like a war scene'

The European Union is under international pressure to establish a new search and rescue operation in the Mediterranean on the heels of the worst migrant disaster in the area in which more than 800 people died after their boat sank off the coast of Libya.

A new report from Amnesty International calls the EU's obligations to provide aid a "stark life and death" matter and unpacks the magnitude of the humanitarian crisis with first-person accounts.

The report, released on Wednesday ahead of an emergency EU Council summit on the crisis, relied on survivors’ testimonies and an analysis of the gap in search and rescue operations in the Mediterranean.

The gap in search and rescue operations

The large gap left after the Mare Nostrum search and rescue operation was shuttered can be linked to an increase in deaths at sea, according to the report.

The Italian run Mare Nostrum Operation, which was created after the deadly 2013 Lampedusa migrant shipwrecks, ended earlier in December 2014.

European Border Agency Frontex's joint program, named Triton, took over operations, but functions only up to 30 miles off of the European coast. Mare Nostrum's area of operation extended 100 miles off the coast of Lampedusa.

According to the Amnesty Report, the resources available to the Triton operation on a daily basis are also limited compared to Mare Nostrum. The discrepancy is made all the more severe when the daily budget of each operation is factored in. Mare Nostrom had a €9.5 million monthly budget while Triton functions on less than a third of those funds with access to €1.5 to €2.9 million monthly.

Image: Amnesty International

The end of Mare Nostrum has also resulted in increased pressure on commercial ships to rescue those in need. This, in turn, puts both commercial shippers and the migrants at risk.

"Rescues by commercial ships pose considerably greater risks to the refugees and migrants," the report says. "The size of ships, high sides, the lack of appropriate devices to proceed to the transfer of people, and lack of specific training of the crew are all factors that increase the risk of boats capsizing or sinking during rescue."

Amnesty International says the Triton operation is simply not enough noting the "benchmark of what is required as a minimum remains Mare Nostrum."

The stories behind the numbers

The report also provides several firsthand accounts of the horrors migrants faced.

Mohammad, a 25-year-old Palestinian man from Lebanon, survived a sinking on March 4 about 50 miles off the Libyan coast. His boat capsized with around 150 people on board, including 20 women and 10 children. A tug boat came to assist the people on board, who were mostly Syrians, Palestinians, Eritreans, Sudanese and Somalis. That boat also capsized.

"I fell into the water. I was the first one. I couldn't breathe," Mohammad said. "When we were in the water it was like a war scene. There were helicopters and boats around us."

He was with a group that was eventually rescued by an Italian coast guard vessel, but 10 people drowned before they could be rescued.

A survivor of a Feb. 8 wreck, which was one of four that day alone, told a similar story. The four wrecks resulted in the death of 330 people in just one day.

Jean, a man from the Ivory Coast on board one of those boats, said he risked the journey after his family threatened him for choosing not to force his daughter to undergo female genital mutilation. Once on the Libyan coast, the smugglers sent the migrants out into the sea with no idea what was ahead of them.

"The smugglers were armed. Some of us were scared and did not want to go, but nobody could turn back," Jean said. "They gave us no maps, nothing. They just said: Go straight ahead and that’s Italy!”

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